American Jews & America’s Game: A Review

Baseball is so much more than the action on the field and in the box scores. Untold numbers of people have used the game to help shape who they are, and connect them with their ethnicities and national identities on whole new levels. Larry Ruttman’s American Jews & America’s Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy […]

Looking Back on Kevin Youkilis’ Career with the Boston Red Sox

Baseball trades often leave fans feeling reflective; in the way one may have felt after having a good friend move away during grade school. Sunday’s announcement that the Red Sox had sent corner infielder Kevin Youkilis to the White Sox in a glorified roster purge to get full time at bats for rookie phenom Will […]

Swinging Out of the Box: The Case For Alphonso Soriano

With more Kevin Youkilis trade rumors today, and teams scrambling for productivity at third base, I have an easy, but controversial idea for the Cubs to move the huge contract of Alphonso Soriano. The best thing for Alphonso Soriano, and the Cubs for that matter, would be to start playing him at third base. I […]

Clearing The Bases

What shall we talk about tonight?  So many things going on in the world of fantasy baseball that I feel we need a news and notes column to go over each team.  We’ll do the American League first, followed by the National League on Thursday.  As always, these teams are in no particular order.   […]

Clearing The Bases

With all of the injuries throughout Major League Baseball and the natural progression of fantasy teams claiming players off the waiver wire, the pickings have become pretty slim in deeper leagues.  With that in mind we are going to talk about minor league players that could help your team in the coming weeks or months.  […]

Clearing The Bases

Major League Baseball teams for the most part use the first third of the season (April, May) to evaluate their team, the middle third (June, July) to make acquisitions to help the team, and the last third (August, September) to fight for a playoff run.  Now trading won’t really pick up for another month or […]

Bobby Valentine: Enemy of Progress

The Boston Red Sox started off this season in miserable fashion, dropping 5 of their first 6 games, displaying atrocious pitching, and losing MVP candidate Jacoby Ellsbury to injury. Things didn’t look good heading into last weekend, but the team somehow rallied and put together an impressive 3 game winning streak against the formidable Tampa […]

Bookends of Hell

As much as I had grown to like Terry Francona, the 2011 Red Sox were severely unprepared to start the season, and ill-equipped to finish it, and it’s a manager’s job to prevent things like that from happening. Yes, there were some devastating injuries to Clay Buchholz, Dice-K, and in the stretch run, Kevin Youkilis, […]

Red Sox Poor Start The Result Of A Lack Of Discipline And Poor Execution

Home plate ump Dale Scott tells a chagrined Jason Varitek the play at home plate required a tag because Youk had tagged the third base bag The Red Sox put forth an embarrassing effort last night and, in the process, saw their record fall to 0-5… just the sixth time in the franchise’s history that […]

Boston Suffers from an Identity Crisis

Everyone knew (free agency) was affecting our club, but we didn’t talk much about it. The thing was, the fun had gone out of the game, not only that year but in the following seasons as well. Baseball went from a team orientation toward an individual orientation. Instead, new guys were coming in and the […]

2011 Pre-Season Preview: AL East – Boston Red Sox

The Red Sox prospects for the 2011 season are so bright, Adrian Gonzalez has got to wear shades Boston Red Sox (2010 record: 89-73) The 2010 edition of the Boston Red Sox was a very good ballclub. Entering the season, it appeared they would have an extraordinary pitching staff but a questionable offense. As it […]

Touring the Bases With Peter Bock of the Coastal Plains League

College baseball is set to go off this week.  Wood bat leagues like the Coastal Plain League will be evaluating college talent before their start-up in late May.  Here is a behind-the-scenes look at that league with one of the league founders, Peter Bock. The Coastal Plain League operates in three Atlantic Coast states.  The […]

AL East Positional Analysis And Ranking: Third Base

I am in the midst of a series examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of the teams in the AL East, on a position-by-position basis. The players at each position are being ranked in relation to their peers within the division, with each team being assigned points based on where their player ranks in comparison […]

Boston Finally Gets Their Man

The Boston Red Sox held a press conference early Monday morning to make an announcement that has been in the works for over two years. Joined at Fenway Park by principal owner John Henry and General Manager Theo Epstein, newly acquired first baseman Adrian Gonzalez was introduced to the Boston media for the first time. To his […]

Time for Red Sox to clean house

With the trade deadline come and gone and the Red Sox doing very little to shore up a run for the post season, perhaps the rest of this season is more or less try outs for next year. Of the regular players on the 25-man roster the following players should all be eligible for trading […]

Never count out the Red Sox

Here is the lineup the Red Sox used on Wednesday: Ellsbury CF, Scutaro SS, Ortiz DH, Martinez C, Drew RF, Beltre 3B, Lowell 1B, Kalish LF, Hall 2B If that lineup seems a little bit out of the ordinary, you are right. However, abnormal batting orders have not been out of the ordinary for the […]

Player survey: Who is the most overrated player in baseball?

187 Major League players were surveyed to answer the question: who is the most overrated player in baseball? Keep in mind that when determining whether a player is overrated or not, evaluation is not the sole factor; public opinion also needs to be weighed in. As determined by the players, here are the top five […]